Youkiza Puppet Company, Four Centuries of Breaking Rules & Pulling Strings

Sayoko Yamaguchi in performance of 'Pelléas et Mélisande' at Youkiza, 1992.
via Japan Times, 2015.

Masahiro Matsuda-san takes me backstage at Nose Joruri Theater, one of the largest joruri companies in Japan. The theater sits just north of Osaka City, a few miles from Mt. Nose and the remarkable Myokensan Temple. Matsuda-san, who was recently appointed director of the theater company, is faced with the challenging task of raising attendance during a time when visitor numbers are steadily shrinking. He has tried to modernize the production's promotional ads by featuring puppets in spacesuits or black and white cinematic poses more reminiscent of Casablanca than Chikamatsu with little results. Backstage, he holds up the wooden kashira of a female puppet. With the pull of a string, she transforms into a demon with horns sprouting from her head, her mouth in a dangerously fanged grin.

A few months earlier, Matsuda-san had the puppet-makers change the color of her mouth from black to a vibrant  blue. This seemingly insignificant choice, the interior color of a puppet's mouth, went too far. Patrons were upset and Matsuda-san found more trouble than he expected. Things were changing too fast.

Traditional Japanese performance, from Noh to Bunraku, is often marked by this strict adherence to historical custom. Ritual is pivotal and anything divergent can be interpreted as disrespectful to the ancestors who practiced before. The national arts are not just entertainment, but an expression of what it means to be Japanese. So when I attended a production of Doll's Town, an original show by Japan's oldest puppet company, Youkiza, I was left totally bewildered. The production traveled between decades, activated magic lanterns for illuminated explosive air raids, featured humans and puppets interacting in Andy Kaufman Howdy Doody intimacy, and set fire to one of the leading characters.

via Europe Magazine, 2011. 

http://eumag.jp/spotlight/e1116/

Started by Magosaburou Youki in 1635, today the company is led by Magosaburou XII, who generously invites me to his studio to explore. Surrounded by marionettes, magic lanterns, and hot coffee in Youkiza's beautiful West Tokyo studio, I have just one question for Magosaburou-san. How does Tokyo's oldest puppet troupe become one of the city's most ambitious and daring theater companies?

At its conception, Youkiza originally performed Buddhist parables with marionettes, each puppet manipulated by seventeen strings attached to a flat control paddle known as a teita. At its center, the teita had a small see-saw-like bar that operated the puppet's head and feet. The puppet's neck was attached to the body through a knob known as a choi. With the assistance of a skilled puppeteer, the choi string brought the puppet to life, creating realistic breath and head movement that, along with the teita, have become synonymous with the company.    

via http://www.youkiza.jp 

During the heyday of itinerant puppet performances in Edo Japan, about five perecent of companies performed with marionettes. However, Youkiza stood out for other reasons. It was one of the first ningyo companies to adopt the collaborative support of a narrator and shamisen player, and they frequently commissioned original plays from contemporaries, including the Edo Era cult figure Hiraga Gennai, who wrote the satirical essay On Farting. Sure, Youkiza did the quintessential Chikamatsu tragedies, but the puppet theater also produced many unknown works before plays gained wide popularity through kabuki and ningyo joruri houses. A fan of these stringed spectacles, the Tokugawa government supported Youkiza throughout the Edo period. Nonetheless, the company faced serious economic challenges that worsened as the Meiji era dawned and shogun rule collapsed. By 1866, Youkiza almost disappeared.

It was the ninth Magosaburou Youki who brought new life to the troupe by reinvigorating the risk-taking penchant that was at the heart of Youkiza. He radically eliminated the tayu and shamisen, brushed up on his storytelling chops, and manipulated the 17-string marionettes while delivering the puppets' dialogue himself. When speaking about Magosaburou Youki IX, Magosaburou-san grins widely across the table, weaving tales about the puppeteer's rebellious escapades, including the introduction of the Magic Lantern, or Utushi-e, into the company's repertoire. The IX performed these illuminated spectacles across the city, including Tokyo riverbanks, where fishing boats were repurposed as puppet stages, and crowds gathered outdoors to witness the astonishing mystical lanterns illuminating keyholes into colorful new worlds.

via http://www.youkiza.jp 

During Youkiza's 2017 production of Doll's Town, three puppeteers emerged operating magic lanterns projecting slides of fighter jets. Through the lantern's internal mechanisms, the glowing illustrations were transformed into crimson explosions. It's a two-hundred year old technique created by light, lenses, and just a few glass slides - but the moment is surprisingly effective, perhaps even more effective than actual footage.

via http://www.youkiza.jp

It's an odd paradox that this artifice feels more sincere than reality. As I bring up this conundrum to Magosaburou-san, he pushes his coffee to the side and waxes poetic. For Magosaburou-san, the tools of the puppet theater, from marionettes to magic lanterns, activate an audience's dormant curiosity. These limitations of the physical object are metaphysical invitations for a viewer to engage his or her imagination and enter head first into the world of the play.

via http://www.youkiza.jp 

At the end of the 19th century, these techniques were just as effective, as Magosaburou Youki IX's innovative introduction of magic lanterns and new performance methods contributed to the rise of Youkiza's popularity. The company worked feverishly in Japan's yose, a type of Japanese Vaudeville. They performed alongside musical acts, magicians, and comedic storytellers known as rakugo. However, despite this success, the company continued to face obstacles, from internal family conflict between Magosaburou IX and his son, Youki Isse (Magosaburou X), the rise of the film industry, and the devastation of World War II, which left much of Youkiza's Edo era puppets and magic lantern equipment destroyed. 

Via the Tokyo Arts Council
https://www.artscouncil-tokyo.jp/

However, for Youki Isse, the 21st century's economic and existential challenges inspired him to question the role of Youkiza in a rapidly changing Japan. Like his father fifty years earlier, Isse wasn't satisfied with the company's work. He wanted to diverge from the world of yose and experiment with large-scale productions, dramatic works, and broadcast television. While Isse's defiance led to serious paternal conflict that lasted decades, he led Youkiza into a fruitful collaboration with NHK, Japan's public broadcasting network. Under industrial lighting, where puppet faces cracked and set piece were set aflame, Youkiza produced one of the first broadcasted puppet shows in Japan. The live televised performances garnered national attention and newfound support for the company, leading to an era of large-scale theatrical productions and new contemporary work. Establishing Youkiza's place in modern Japan, all with the same puppet fabrication and manipulation techniques from the last three and half centuries, Isse was eventually granted the Magosaburou title by his father.

via http://www.youkiza.jp

Two generations later, Magosaburou XII shares so much in common with his ancestors it feels like they are at the table with us. Like his forefathers, Magosaburou-san didn't have any toys. As children, the Youki line was only allowed to play with marionettes. By four, they all made their stage premieres, performing marionettes alongside fathers and grandfathers. But most similarly, he has pushed the company in new directions, producing Japanese kabuki classics, the radical works of Artaud and Jean Genet, international collaborations, and original shows that explore post-war and post-bubble Japan.  As an artist who developed in the 1970s, Magosaburou-san found inspiration in Tokyo's radical underground  theater movement, ultimately incorporating the spirit of Shüji Terayama and Juro Kara into his Edo era company. This has shaped a contemporary Youkiza that offers a rare reflection into both modern and traditional Japan. 

via Blog of Sakate.
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/sakate2008/m/201603

Today, the company is designated a "National Selected Intangible Folk Cultural Property" and a "Tokyo Municipal Intangible Cultural Property," however, Youki-san admits he faces pushback from cultural institutions. As one of the oldest surviving theater companies in Japan, officeholders, cultural ambassadors, and bureaucrats want him to stick to tradition. But what if your tradition survived by taking risks and challenging the status quo?

via @ihajiro. https://twitter.com/ihajiro

I ask Magosaburou-san what kind of work he hopes Youkiza will produce in the future. "I can't really know and I don't really care," he responds. "As long as they keep using the same puppet techniques, I'm ok." And how can he care? In order to survive, it's about answering the question that every Magosaburou Youki has asked for the last 375 years. "What Does it mean to be Japanese in this moment... and this moment... and this moment..." It's a question that never gets old. 

For more information about Youkiza, visit their website at: 

http://www.youkiza.jp

Takayama Matsuri, A 350 Year Old Puppet Show, and Glover, Vermont

As I head to Kyoto Station from Otsu Matsuri, I have a deep suspicion I'm not going to make it to Takayama Matsuri. I’m certain I'm on the wrong platform, even as I watch the corresponding trains pull into the station. On the bus from Nagoya to Takayama, I convince myself I missed my stop and I'm actually headed to Hokkaido's most northern tip. What if I lose my wallet? Or the train never shows up? This anxiety was anticipated. I am headed to one of Japan's most legendary karakuri ningyo shows, and it's only performed on one day of the year. If I miss this - that's it. But I'm in Japan - where wallets are usually returned and a late train is a mythical legend. Of course, I arrive in Takayama right on time.

As I make my way through the thousands of tourists to my ryokan near Hachiman shrine, the city puts me at ease. Despite the crowds, Takayama's beauty and charm is intoxicating. The city feels wonderfully timeless, combining Edo Period architecture with sprawling glass storefronts that reveal ultra-modern wooden furniture and stainless steel home goods. Glossy Post-War diners with Art Deco signage share the streets with 16th century sake breweries. Despite Takayama's blend of contemporary style and historic buildings, nothing feels out of place. If anything, Takayama reveals the ageless aesthetic of Japan's minimalism and its influence on modern design.

As night falls, the dashi, or yatai as they are called in Takayama, parade down Yasukowa Street. A coalition of fantastical lions leads the dazzling cavalcade. The mouths swing open and snap with electrifying cracks that complement their wiry hair and devious grins. 

The lions' heads and bodies are manipulated by teams of teenage boys, who balance wild energy with perfect harmony. Despite the frenetic energy, the puppeteers are possessively committed. 

Unlike other festivals, where teenage participants are celebratory and carefree, these young puppeteers are focused. In their dedication, you can see their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers who once performed the same custom. They don't just carry the the paulownia carved lion masks, but the weight of Takayama's history.

The eleven yatai stretch across the main street and greet visitors with magnificent grandeur. 

The ohayashi and kajikata gather around the floats to prepare for the evening procession, as awe struck tourists travel from yatai to yatai.

The illuminated floats are hypnotizing. The amount of resources needed to create this timeless wonder is staggering, and set against an international crowd of over 100,000 open-mouthed onlookers, it feels like a World's Fair. 

It's the the pursuit of aesthetic pleasures against the logic of an economist. But it pays off. As the floats journey into Takayama's historic neighborhoods, their beauty grows even more enchanting.

The boroughs of Takayama are magnificently preserved in Edo architecture. Exposed running water straddles the streets, vending machines are obsolete, and hundreds of paper street lamps illuminate the road by flame. You are experiencing the town and festival almost the same way a visitor would have 350 years earlier.

 

The next morning, on my way to the fall festival's karakuri ningyo performance, I am met with Takayama Matsuri's procession, or keitoraku. In the procession I discover the generations of lion performers.

     

Takayama's karakuri ningyo performance is over 350 years old. It's performed only one day a year, during this Hachiman Festival. It's also one of Japan's longest karakuri ningyo performances, running about 25 minutes. Like the puppets at Otsu Matsuri, Takayama's karakuri ningyo are operated by strings that run across a narrow overhanging stage, or toi. However, with over three dozen strings and more intricate movement, the manipulation is even more demanding.

Because they're primarily operated by strings, Takayama's mechanical dolls are often translated to marionette, but in Japanese they are called karako. There's an air of secrecy in the rehearsal and set-up process. 

A large embroidery shrouds the yatai's bottom tier and the response to foreigners trying to get an inside look is tepid to say the least. However, a few young boys come and go with the privileges of VIP. These are the future puppeteers, who drink juice boxes, and hang their feet over the edge of the yatai admiring the large audience.

The yatai is docked at Hachiman Shrine, and two hours before the performance, there are already at least three hundred spectators crowded around the 3 story float. I am lucky to receive a seat at the very front of the performance. Despite the enormous audience, people are careful not to stand in front of the sight lines of others. At one dramatic turn of events, the entire audience grows silent as a gentleman walks in front of the crowd and sets up a tripod. A few members start to shout. They've waited an entire year for this performance, they booked their ryokan months in advance, and they arrived three hours early to get a good seat. An irate audience member tosses his tripod, another man shouts, and eventually the photographer is escorted away from the scene by a friendly police officer. It's the first time I've ever witnessed a fight for seats at a puppet show.

The performance is packed full of miniature stunts that culminate in a grand feat of pure puppet glory. The god of good luck, Hotei, greets the crowd from the toi. An acrobat flips his way across a trapeze, and then hops onto the shoulders of the gregarious deity. Another acrobat follows behind. At the end of the show, Hotei dances around the track with the two acrobats on his shoulders. Once you think things couldn't get much more wild, Hotei spins in circles, opens a fan, and releases confetti to the crowd below.

I stick around Takayama for a few more days to explore the city's karakuri ningyo museum. The gallery offers daily karakuri ningyo performances. There is an over-sized calligrapher puppet, two robotic dolls that sword fight while balancing on columns, and an acrobat who swings across the stage. 

But like a "best of album", these shows lack a certain magic. When watching a traditional festival performance, you're in a rambunctious dialogue with history, the city, and performers. Like the young lions dancing through Takayama's historic downtown, context makes these experiences more wondrous.

Is there anything in The United States that comes close to the rich interplay between community, history, and performance? Often, American parades and festivals feel like they run on borrowed time. The institutions remain in control, instead of allowing the festival to roam freely. This prevents festivals from creating a type of celebratory other-worldly escape. In the U.S., a city festival usually means your town’s most notorious realtor is waving from a pick-up truck while a few puppets parade around the local library. But we can’t help it - for the most part, we lack a historical context for festival performance.

There are a few exceptions - Mardi Gras for example.

Perhaps the most notable exception is Bread and Puppet, which I thought of frequently while attending Japanese Matsuri. Like Japan’s festival tradition, Bread and Puppet obscures the lines between community and performance. 

(from http://breadandpuppet.org/) 

(Tahara Matsuri, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. 2016)

Many of the puppeteers live on the Vermont farm, performing communal duties and engaging in a strict rehearsal regime. Like the matsuri communities, the Bread and Puppet farm and theatrical spectacles work in tandem. The shows feel as organic as the Vermont forest that surrounds you. Bread and Puppet has also been around long enough to draw from a substantial history. The theater group developed its own unique language of iconic characters and physical gesture. It keeps aesthetic guidelines and holds on to its historic traditions while remaining political. This makes it feel timeless, and, like the Japanese matsuri, ritualistic. 

(from http://breadandpuppet.org/) 

Back in Takayama, I watch as the floats are loaded back into garages throughout the city, and look for a spot to grab a cup of coffee. Many of the restaurants and souvenir shops are closed and have taken a well-deserved holiday. Even though the streets are empty, its the kind of place you don’t want to leave. 

Like the yatai hibernating in their garages, I feel like sticking around till Takayama’s spring matsuri but instead, I’ll just have to take another train. Chances are high I’ll get back on time.

For more information on Bread and Puppet please visit: http://breadandpuppet.org/ 

Otsu Matsuri

“So how many puppeteers operate the karakuri ningyo?” I ask Mr. Yamada.

“Karako” he corrects. "Four."

“And the karakuri ningyo’s age?” I ask.

“Karako” he insists.

Karako was the only name these mechanical puppets went by in Toda, and it seemed by Mr. Yamada's insistence that calling them anything else was blasphemous.

It was an easy enough word, karako, but I had to forget what I previously spent hours practicing. Before I arrived in Japan I rehearsed my bow in the shower, trying to bend at a dignified 45 degrees, and repeated the Japanese words for "mechanical doll" over and over. "Ka-rakuri ningyo, kala-kurri ning-yo, ka-da-kuri ning-yo".

At some point I got a handle on the phrase and now when I tell people why I came to Japan I don't have to move my arms like a robot while saying the word for "doll" over and over again. But the more festivals I attend, the more I realize that every matsuri has its own vernacular. Karakuri ningyo only gets me so far.

The terminology is not the only difference. The puppets' mechanics, the performance techniques, and the design of the dashi are just a few of the distinctions you'll come across in each city. There's no place you'll experience these differences more vividly than at Otsu Matsuri. 

According to my mentor Yasuko Senda-san, until the 1980s outsiders were not openly invited to attend Japanese matsuri. While we imagine the "outsider" as a backpacking Westerner, during the Edo period when many of these Matsuri developed, an "outsider" could be anyone who didn't live in the town. It was considered a disservice to the city, the shrine’s deities, and ancestors who participated before to pull influence from other matsuri and homogenize the ritual, language, and performance methods. 

This is one of the many paradoxes I have experienced in Japan. It's a collective society that fosters uniformity, while also maintaining extreme examples of individuality and uniqueness. Japan is known for it's ubiquitous school uniforms and well-dressed salary men, but also for the extraordinarily unique fashions of Harajuku. 

Lucky for me the mechanical puppets in Otsu are called karakuri ningyo, however, instead of dashi, Otsu Matsuri's floats were often called hoko or yama. The hoko look similar to other festival dashi, but they have an additional front wheel and a top tier with wooden benches that criss cross the deck. Instead of playing on the first floor of the float, the ohayashi surround the karakuri ningyo puppets on the uppermost stage. The benches provide space for the musicians to sit, their heads peaking over the edge like a passengers on a riverboat.

 

During the pre-festival afternoon, the kajikata pull the hoko through Otsu's narrow streets. There's no room for the kajikata to dramatically rotate the floats, but there's still plenty of drama as the men haul the hoko up steep slopes to the musical encouragement from the ohayashi. Sure, there's flat roads and wide streets in Otsu, but at a Japanese matsuri, decisions are rarely made out of convenience.

Traffic lights are rotated out of the way of incoming hoko by teams of police officers clutching neon rope, while spectators are forced to squeeze against walls to let the floats pass. As children hang one-handed from the 5 ton hoko and a dozen musicians cram into the 50 square foot stage, it's clear you won't find phrases like safety hazard, capacity limits, or sight lines in the festival handbook.

Unlike the festivals in Aichi Prefecture where the dashi are stored in enormous towering garages, the hoko are dismantled and reconstructed every year. There's over 300 pieces to these 19th century floats, and it takes at least a week to restore just one. The hoko are kept in well-organized storage rooms where you won't find a single screw or nail. The floats are built through a century old technique of interlocking joints. 



That's right, no nails were used in the making of this hoko.

The night before Otsu Matsuri, the hoko line up in the town's narrow alleys and are adorned with hundreds of luminescent Japanese lanterns. 

At each float, visitors are met with cauldrons filled with warm sake, live music, and delicious red bean mochi. 

There's only a few vendors, perhaps because of the lack of space, so the homes facing the festival streets open their garages and offer visitors warm matcha and snacks at makeshift picnic tables. 

The cool breeze, hospitality, and warm tea makes for a cozy evening - but I should enjoy it while it lasts. The sun won't just bring a new day, but about a thousand extra visitors to the tiny streets of Otsu.

At 10:00am, visitors fill the sidewalks near Tenso Shrine. This is the first stop for the karakuri ningyo before they take their annual procession around the city. I feel terrible as I crush an elderly woman with my backpack as the police physically push spectators into ultra-snug clusters to make room for the first hoko.  As the giant float approaches, onlookers race to find the best view. Some have waited hours for this performance and everyone is primed for the show. The ohyashi surround the karakuri ningyo as one young taiko drummer peers over the float and down at my sweaty face with both pity and bewilderment. 

With the release of a loud creaking sigh, the hoko rotates completely away from the audience. Some of the spectators murmur in confusion as the karakuri ningyo face the shrine's entrance disinterested in the crowd's affection. The only audience that counts is the gods, as each puppet show is performed for the unseen deities.

I spend the morning chasing down the hoko with my camera, crawling through crowds, looking for short-cuts around traffic, and trying to get a good view of the karakuri ningyo performances. Traveling through the unfamiliar tiny streets, following music, and trailing behind clusters of people, I'm reminded a bit of Sleep No More, or the one time I sped through Connecticut's Bradley International Airport trying to catch a glimpse of Jennifer Anniston. 

As mentioned previously, the karakuri ningyo at Otsu festival is remarkably different than those in Aichi Precture. Some of the puppets are human-scale with more realistic design. They are often combined with whimsical small-scale puppets that appear from secret compartments.

This use of contrasting scales and fantastical creatures moves the performance in-between reality and the imaginary. The Japanese author Murasaki Shikibu sits at a desk writing The Tale of Genji. Suddenly, her words come to life as miniatures spring up from the bottom of the stage and rotate around her on a mechanical turntable.

Accorrding to Yasuko Senda-san, karakuri ningyo's use of the rotating platform is one of the first examples of the theatrical turntable in Japanese theatrical performance. It was later adopted on a larger scale by Japanese joruri performances.

Besides the difference in scale and aesthetics, the manipulation is Otsu Matsuri is also distinct. For each performance there is only one or two puppeteers who manipulate the puppets from the hoko's middle tier. This area is kept covered by large ornamental embroidery. Instead of operating the puppets directly below the figures, like a conventional rod puppet, the puppeteers use mechanical tracks and strings. As a result, the puppets' movements are more robotic and precise, sort of like a cuckoo clock. These mechanical tracks, or toi, are a trademark of Otsu's karakuri ningyo. 

In one memorable performance there is an external toi that takes the shape of a Japanese tree branch reaching over the hoko and above the audience. A hanging fruit opens to reveal a fairy. The fairy makes his away across the tree branch, and happily dances above the audience. 

In one of my favorite performances, a Japanese flute calls forth a lion. A secret compartment opens on the stage to reveal the adorable mechanical beast. The lion frolics across the toi to the applause of the audience below. 

This lion and fairy performances remind me of the countless colorful characters that appear everywhere imaginable in Japan. Warnings, instructions, and city logos are transformed into big-eyed moments of delight: an endearing amphibian reminds me to avoid putting my hand in-between the elevator's moving doors and an owl dressed like a police officer greets me as I activate a cross-walk signal. 

It's a lot easier to remember to turn off the lights when you leave your apartment when you're prompted by a picture of a deer wearing a kimono. As I watch the Shisa hop across the toi to an adoring crowd, it's clear that Japan's kawaii aesthetic can be traced back to Japanese's rich culture of performance and folklore. 

I want to stick around Otsu to discover the other characters that will unexpectedly emerge from the colorful hoko, but I have a train to catch. Takayama Matsuri starts in just three hours and it's 200 miles away. 

As I slip out of the crowd surrounding the Shisa's float, my vacant spot is quickly filled. I trace my steps back to Otsu Station and pass a couple racing through the back streets, trying to bypass the human congestion to get a good spot for the next performance. The way we race through traffic and nudge through crowds just to gawk up at these characters you'd  think they were celebrities. But they're not. These mechanical actors don't care about our adoration or applause. In fact, I'm certain they'd still be here, with or without us, performing for the gods.

Tahara Matsuri

Tahara City sits at the head of Japan's Atsumi Peninsula. A two hour train ride from Nagoya Station, the city welcomes visitors with a landscape speckled with convenience stores, melon farms, and solar panels. On a typical Friday morning, traffic inches across Tahara Bay towards the second-largest Toyota manufacturing plant in Japan, as surfers head to the coast to tackle some of the most thrilling waves in the Pacific. 

However, this weekend is different. This weekend, all roads lead to the Tahara Matsuri, one of the last major summer festival in Aichi prefecture. 

Japanese festivals are distinguished by dashi, the multi-tiered floats that travel through city streets. Appearing as joyous thrones, these dashi sway above crowds of onlookers, marking the start of the weekend's festivities. Inside, musicians sit tightly packed with their instruments on the first floor, while mechanical puppets move six meters above their heads. These automated puppets, known as karakuri ningyo or "mechanical dolls," are what brings me to Tahara.

During the first quarter of the Edo Period, wooden robots carried tea across tatami floors to their masters, mechanical frogs hopped across late-night pubs with shots of sake on their backs, and festival floats were adorned with deities that transformed into dragons, orangutans, and magical carps. 

As far back as 1662, visitors to Takeda Omi's Karakuri Theater took delight in live entertainment absent of actors, dancers, or any type human flesh at all, for that matter. For over 100 years, the theater produced original plays cast entirely of mechanical actors. 

Four hundred years since these mechanical puppets first appeared on matsuri floats, they still delight thousands across Japan, performing in over 60 annual festivals. Even in permanent theaters, karakuri ningyo remains a popular attraction as robot ensembles continue to perform on rotation at the Kiryu City's Karakuri Puppet Theater and the Chiran Waterwheel Theater. The magic of these automated thespians is timeless, and their influence on Japanese culture is unmistakable. Just take a stroll down the bustling streets of Tokyo's Shibuya district, where crowds of tourists line up every night to watch a two hour dinner theater extravaganza with performing robots. 

For most of the year, each dashi hibernates in a city-sponsored garage. On the morning of the festival, the floats are released, and pulled by teams of men, teenagers, and children through the city of Tahara.

This afternoon, the three dashi converge at the festival center around 13:00, as the musicians, puppeteers, and audience prepare for the show.

Each performance is five to seven minutes long and captures a particular Japanese legend. The performances end with a cathartic transformation: a fish appears at the end of a pole, an empress is transformed into a dragon, a shinto priest releases white confetti from his wooden gohei.  

Each float has four puppeteers, with two puppeteers operating each karakuri ningyo within the secret deck. Inside, it feels like a club-house, with a few pillows and the smell of Japanese cypress. Only men are allowed up.

Following the performance, the dashi are exhibited in the festival hall, and greet the visitors from surrounding towns who have traveled to Tahara for the celebration.

I thought this was the end of the dashi. However, following the karakuri ningyo performance, music echoed down the narrow streets of Tahara. Behind the local elementary school, I saw the colorful tops of more dashi, starting and stopping, traveling in every direction.  Walking through Tahara's neighborhoods, I discovered teenagers adorned in body paint and colorful clothing pulling the floats.

On the bottom tier, young girls filled the dashi. With makeup and kimonos perfectly adorned, each girl climbs from the pit onto the stage. The audience participates, tossing coins and candy in the air.

These performances stem from weeks of preparation, and serve as a rite of passage for the participants. After the performance, the dashi continues to the next house, where it stops, and another girl steps up to perform.

In between the performances, teenage boys jump on the stage, and karaoke to J-Pop, often in zany hand-made costumes. 

At night, these traveling stages multiply once more, as Tahara's main street is transformed into a wild community performance, a sort of talent show performed at the exact same time as another talent show only 10 yards away, performed next to another talent show only 10 yards away, performed next to another talent show only 10 yards away...

Each stage has its own aesthetic style, some with multiple tiers, where technicians operate music from boomboxes, rotate makeshift disco balls and wave pulsing strobe lights. Many of these dashi have gas-powered flames, a wholly exciting flourish when accompanied by eight teenagers hanging off the sides, dancing and singing along with Japanese pop.

While I came to Tahara to experience the karakuri ningyo, its the dashi that left me with a lasting impression. The festival reframes many Western concepts of a stage, and transforms it into something that is ubiquitous, sacred, and accessible all at once. The design of these floats draws from the style of the traditional karakuri ningyo dashi seen earlier in the day; however, that traditional appearance is invigorated with the makeshift charm of christmas lights, kitsch, found objects, and untamed dancing. 

On the final day of the festival, hunabi is the word. Community members clasp enormous smoking fireworks as offerings at the local shinto shrine. In the evening, an unbelievable firework display lights up the night sky for over two hours. Chocolate bananas are served under tents and the McDonalds has a line out the door.

The community of Tahara is excited to share their history with visitors. They are also thrilled to show off an amazing eco-friendly electrical grid. Solar panels and wind mills dot the landscape, hugged by the Atsumi Bay and Pacific Ocean. At the top of the Mt. Zao, a giant turbine reminds visitors that almost 30 percent of the homes in Tahara are powered by renewable energy.

The observatory on Mt. Zao has a glow-in-the-dark celestial path that leads up to a sleek yogurt shop. It's the perfect place to enjoy the fireworks and watch Tahara's matsuri traditions as summer loosens its grip on the region.